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Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

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Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#81
On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins changed the way I see myself and the world in a big way. I don't necessarily see his approach as a pathway to AI (though I don't dismiss it), but I thought it had some easily understandable insight into how our minds work.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries got me thinking about applying the scientific method to things I never thought of before.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#83

I read Freakonomics and Guns, Germs and Steel in college and was initially 'amazed' by it. Now, I see it as mass market rubbish used to influence a particular demographic. But that goes for pretty much everything really. Catcher in the Rye in high school. Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People". I think books can "change the way you think about almost everything" when you are younger, naive and idealisti…

I've found that most of the Einstein quotes I've seen online don't have a valid source, where did you find that one? Just as a heads up, since Walter Isaacson never mentioned anything similar to that on his biography of him.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#84
post #69

"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari. Hands down the book that most influenced me. The book had (for me) not one but several simple-yet-profound ideas that were forever inserted into the foreground of how I make sense of the world. For example, the existence of shared myths that allow humans to cooperate on a large scale. Or how I too, am religious, though I was sure I wasn't. Can't recommend…

Check out his sequel: https://www.ynharari.com/book/homo-deus/

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#85

Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan Walden by Emerson Godel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter

Conveniently, I can just tack onto this list two more books and there we will have the 4 most important books on my life so far.

Sexual Personae By Camille Paglia

Capital: Volume I By Karl Marx

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#88
"Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error" by Kathryn Schulz. I especially loved the bit where she explained that if people see things differently, we 1) think they are uninformed. If we know they are informed, we think 2) they are stupid. If we know they aren't stupid, we decide 3) they are evil.

I also read another great book that talked about differences between conservative, liberal, and libertarian viewpoints, with a notion of different taste buds that are active when observing the world that was really interesting, but unfortunately, the name escapes me.

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